Headteacher's Blog

Friday 11th December 2015

The last weeks of term is following the time honoured pattern. We enjoyed an absolutely delightful carol service on Monday where our new music staff, Guy Guerrini and Matt Davies, demonstrated what worthy successors they are to the legacy of Rebecca Hancock. The carol service had all the traditional elements but also a vibrant and lively spirit. As always, we are very grateful to our friends in the parish of Portishead for allowing us to use St Nicholas’s Church and to the Rev Christine Judson for officiating at the service.

Next week sees two Christmas concerts on Wednesday and Thursday. As they are ticket only, if you have not already booked a ticket I would urge you to move quickly as we usually sell out before the day.

We have also been hosting our former Year 11 students, a great many of whom are our current Sixth Formers, at our GCSE Certificate evening which took place on Wednesday. The guest of honour was Captain David Bence RN who is a former student of Gordano School and has gone on to a very distinguished career in the Royal Navy. Captain Bence proved to be a thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring speaker and we have had extremely positive feedback from families who attended which I shall be delighted to pass on to him along with our thanks. The evening was a really celebratory way to mark the achievements at GCSE last year and it is greatly to the credit of our young people and the very committed staff at the school that our results put us at the head of the North Somerset league table this year. I am looking forward to welcoming the Vice Chancellor of the University of Bristol as our guest at the Sixth Form Presentation Evening and as always it will wonderful to welcome back former Sixth Formers who are now pursuing their studies at university or have taken up training and employment opportunities.

The season of mocks for Year 11 is behind us and Year 11 parents will be pleased to know that we have been incredibly impressed by our Year 11 students who have shown great character and seriousness in their approach to these important tests. We are currently working our way through mock papers and, although there will be analysis of papers in lessons in the coming weeks, we will saving the full ‘reveal’ of results until a mock results day next term. It is our hope that the mocks will have shown lots of progress but also where lessons need to be learned.

Our last day of term falls next Friday and we are allowing students who have Christmas jumpers to wear them on that occasion as part of a fund raising opportunity for the Save the Children charity. The last day of term is always lots of fun and I would urge you to ask your son and daughter what fancy dress theme the Design Technology team have adopted for the end of term assembly: past themes have included the Nativity, Star Wars, Toy Story and the Wizard of Oz so I am full of anticipation for what is going to be unleashed upon us next week.

Can I wish all our families a peaceful, merry and enjoyable Christmas holiday and say thank you, as always, for your support and encouragement in the past term.